5 ms·

It's weird to see all these crutches and half-assed fixes instead of lobbying and other work done to fix the ID situation in the US. It's really unfathomable to

It's weird to see all these crutches and half-assed fixes instead of lobbying and other work done to fix the ID situation in the US. It's really unfathomable to me how big of a problem identity theft and unauthorized access to digital systems for a regular citizen is. Especially compared to what for example Estonia has built, where I really do not have to worry about that issue - I have to have my ID card (or my mobile-ID) or I don't have access. Basically mandatory 2FA everywhere important, since about 2002, in my humble opinion it should be about time the US properly fixed the issue.

monocasa 8y ago
There's a very vocal minority that views any attempt by the government to make any ID proof that the New World Order exists. There's also a pretty decent sized part of the Evangelical movement that sees those IDs as potentially the literal "mark of the beast" from revelations. Additionally a part of the Republican strategy is to disenfranchise via selectively reducing access to valid existing IDs while cranking up voting requirements of those IDs. This combo basically means that both Republicans as a whole and the Blue Dogs see it as politically nonviable, which is more than a majority at the federal level.
- Avamander 8y ago
  > Additionally a part of the Republican strategy is to disenfranchise via selectively reducing access to valid existing IDs while cranking up voting requirements of those IDs. Can't the goverment provide the IDs to those who are less well off for free-of-charge?
  - pjc50 8y ago
    It could, but a Republican government won't.
  - mrguyorama 8y ago
    That would require the government to WANT the disenfranchised to have voting IDs. Republicans claim it's "Common Sense", but see here for how it's entirely fucked up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHFOwlMCdto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHFOwlMCdto
  - monocasa 8y ago
    They could, but that's specifically against their strategy here. In fact they generally selectively make IDs harder to get. https://www.al.com/opinion/2017/01/as_it_turns_out_bentleys_drive.html https://www.al.com/opinion/2017/01/as_it_turns_out_bentleys_... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/
  - BlackRing 8y ago
    Many states, if not all, provide a free non-drivers ID card.
    - abrowne 8y ago
      Definitely not all. Minnesota's at least is paid. As a non-driver, I decided to skip renewing mine recently and get a passport card instead.
- basetop 8y ago
  You are conveniently leaving out the fact that many liberal Democrats also don't want national ids because it might hurt illegal immigrants, prevent voter fraud, etc. I can't help but cringe whenever politically motivated people throw around talking points they heard on their favorite disinformation cable network. The reason why we don't have a proper national id card is primarily a result of state's rights vs fed rights and to prevent centralization of power. But centralization of power has happened regardless so I'm sure we'll be getting national id cards eventually. Historically, it was the Democrats ( the party of the South ) who were anti-national id card. The republicans were the party of the northeast elites. So if you want to blame anyone, blame the democratic party because they are why we don't have a national id card system.
  - packet_nerd 8y ago
    At least in the conservative community where I grew up, the religious "mark-of-the-beast/new world order" narrative was the main anti-national ID narrative. I'd never heard the illegal immigrant angle before.
    - MiddleEndian 8y ago
      It's not a real thing. Nobody is pro voter fraud. Nobody is in favor of non US citizens voting in US elections. They are against voter disinfranchisement. The problem is that the IDs can be made harder for some to get than others. See momocasa's post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19879722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19879722
      - maxerickson 8y ago
        I think there probably are people that want to enfranchise mere residents. It doesn't seem to be catastrophic for New Zealand, for instance. There's a strong argument to be made that people participating in the economy and other parts of civic life deserve to have a voice in politics. It's convenient and popular to exclude them, that doesn't make it just. (I phrase my first paragraph the way I do because I haven't thought about it much and don't have a real clear opinion 'bout it)
infominer 8y ago
There are a ton of individuals and big companies in tech working through standardization bodies to create an identity layer for the internet, that no single organization is in control over. Google is not among them. A link to the ISO Standard Google is waiting for approval on: https://www.iso.org/standard/69084.html https://www.iso.org/standard/69084.html Examples of organizations working to solve identity problems, rather than compound them: https://www.weboftrust.info/ https://www.weboftrust.info/ https://identity.foundation/ https://identity.foundation/
- Avamander 8y ago
  There's no way to do one-to-one identity verification and authentication without centralized coordination and control. Just as an example, even if we really wanted to there'd be now way to let only one CA issue a certificate for a domain if any of the CAs is rogue.
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    There is no easy way. What is an important distinction, since there exist situations when even hard to follow procedures are better than a centralized option. Those are just not your daily "how do I know if I can show you my credit card" situations.
    - Avamander 8y ago
      There's no cryptographically secure way as far as I'm aware.
      - marcosdumay 8y ago
        You do get in front of the other person and exchange public keys. Or you ask for help from a set of trusted middle-man. Those are perfectly fine ways to run a PKI, they are just not fit for the "entire web" PKI.
        8y ago
h2odragon 8y ago
Its easier to gripe about "evil $otherparty" and vent righteous anger at the corporate written and backed ideas that get submitted, than it would be to draft legislation implementing a sensible and sound open public ID system and get some Congresscritter to actually get it to the floor. There might have been some efforts that I'm unaware of but that I haven't heard of them suggests they didn't get far. It doesn't help that there's not yet an elegant, eloquently defined notion of what such a system should be that an advocate could point to and say "see? this will solve all your problems". We got hucksters yelling blockchain but that's a different thing.
- crooked-v 8y ago
  Trying to claim bothsides here is casually glossing over the very real history of the Republican party hijacking ID laws to suppress the rights of the poor and minorities.
mindslight 8y ago
Your talking about "identity theft" as if it's an unquestionable concept demonstrates precisely why there is opposition to strengthening the technicals of identification. Every bit that makes identification stronger is yet another excuse for businesses to assert that it is infallible. Even currently, rather than banks simply admitting they were defrauded and thanking/compensating the innocent bystanders for helping them set things right, they keep pushing this "identity theft" narrative to make it seem like the unlucky victims of bank's incompetence have some sort of intrinsic involvement! It's understandable how it got this way, as from inside the system's paradigm it does look like an "identity was stolen". But the map is not the territory - despite businesses wishing that it were because they can only operate in terms of the map. We are not subjects of the government nor of corporations - free people must resist being cataloged and controlled by database rows that seek to override our actual existence. Furthermore in regards to the US, it's basically a foregone conclusion that any government-mandated ID system will not include effective restrictions that keep corporations from hooking on to build invasive tracking. Let's hold them to reigning in the ongoing widespread abuse of license plates, driver's license numbers, etc before we go advocating for even more identifying requirements on individuals in this age of surveillance.
- Avamander 8y ago
  > they keep pushing this "identity theft" narrative to make it seem like the unlucky victims of bank's incompetence have some sort of intrinsic involvement! But how is it that it's not really a problem in Estonia, where we have strongly e-identity attached to a citizen. Or are you saying our banks, institutions, telecom and other companies are somehow more competent? You also have SSNs which is a government-mandated ID system that keeps you as rows in a database. Stop the holier-than-thou please.
  - mindslight 8y ago
    > But how is it that it's not really a problem in Estonia, where we have strongly e-identity attached to a citizen I have no idea how your dispute process looks in Estonia. What happens if you lose your national ID card, don't realize it for a week, and someone has used it to do a bunch of things in your name? The sensible answer is that anything unauthorized should be rolled back or otherwise not attributed to you. This need is obvious when an "ID" is a plain 10 digit number. But when the average person can't imagine an ID being cloned because it's stored on a "smartcard", then it's a lot easier to sell responsibility as being on the person that lost their card. > You also have SSNs which is a government-mandated ID system that keeps you as rows in a database. Stop the holier-than-thou please. I only left off SSN next to license plate and driver's license number for brevity's sake. I was directly referencing ongoing problems here, so I certainly wasn't trying to be "holier-than-thou" in some kind of nationalist cheerleading. My point is that the existing ID systems that exist are being straight up abused (license plates -> ANPR, driver's license -> Retail Equation, SSN -> LexisNexis, for some of the most blatant abuses). The USian political philosophy discourages any sensible regulations that would reign this in, and that needs to be fixed before providing even more raw data for surveillance companies to build on. In Estonia, how would you deal with a supermarket deciding to make it so that customers wanting a sale discount card have to link their national ID?
sieabahlpark 8y ago
I think people have said that you can't force people to own or carry IDs because not everyone has equal access to get them.

monocasa 8y ago

There's a very vocal minority that views any attempt by the government to make any ID proof that the New World Order exists. There's also a pretty decent sized part of the Evangelical movement that sees those IDs as potentially the literal "mark of the beast" from revelations. Additionally a part of the Republican strategy is to disenfranchise via selectively reducing access to valid existing IDs while cranking up voting requirements of those IDs. This combo basically means that both Republicans as a whole and the Blue Dogs see it as politically nonviable, which is more than a majority at the federal level.

Avamander 8y ago
> Additionally a part of the Republican strategy is to disenfranchise via selectively reducing access to valid existing IDs while cranking up voting requirements of those IDs. Can't the goverment provide the IDs to those who are less well off for free-of-charge?
- pjc50 8y ago
  It could, but a Republican government won't.
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  That would require the government to WANT the disenfranchised to have voting IDs. Republicans claim it's "Common Sense", but see here for how it's entirely fucked up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHFOwlMCdto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHFOwlMCdto
- monocasa 8y ago
  They could, but that's specifically against their strategy here. In fact they generally selectively make IDs harder to get. https://www.al.com/opinion/2017/01/as_it_turns_out_bentleys_drive.html https://www.al.com/opinion/2017/01/as_it_turns_out_bentleys_... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/
- BlackRing 8y ago
  Many states, if not all, provide a free non-drivers ID card.
  - abrowne 8y ago
    Definitely not all. Minnesota's at least is paid. As a non-driver, I decided to skip renewing mine recently and get a passport card instead.
basetop 8y ago
You are conveniently leaving out the fact that many liberal Democrats also don't want national ids because it might hurt illegal immigrants, prevent voter fraud, etc. I can't help but cringe whenever politically motivated people throw around talking points they heard on their favorite disinformation cable network. The reason why we don't have a proper national id card is primarily a result of state's rights vs fed rights and to prevent centralization of power. But centralization of power has happened regardless so I'm sure we'll be getting national id cards eventually. Historically, it was the Democrats ( the party of the South ) who were anti-national id card. The republicans were the party of the northeast elites. So if you want to blame anyone, blame the democratic party because they are why we don't have a national id card system.
- packet_nerd 8y ago
  At least in the conservative community where I grew up, the religious "mark-of-the-beast/new world order" narrative was the main anti-national ID narrative. I'd never heard the illegal immigrant angle before.
  - MiddleEndian 8y ago
    It's not a real thing. Nobody is pro voter fraud. Nobody is in favor of non US citizens voting in US elections. They are against voter disinfranchisement. The problem is that the IDs can be made harder for some to get than others. See momocasa's post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19879722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19879722
    - maxerickson 8y ago
      I think there probably are people that want to enfranchise mere residents. It doesn't seem to be catastrophic for New Zealand, for instance. There's a strong argument to be made that people participating in the economy and other parts of civic life deserve to have a voice in politics. It's convenient and popular to exclude them, that doesn't make it just. (I phrase my first paragraph the way I do because I haven't thought about it much and don't have a real clear opinion 'bout it)

infominer 8y ago

There are a ton of individuals and big companies in tech working through standardization bodies to create an identity layer for the internet, that no single organization is in control over. Google is not among them. A link to the ISO Standard Google is waiting for approval on: https://www.iso.org/standard/69084.html https://www.iso.org/standard/69084.html Examples of organizations working to solve identity problems, rather than compound them: https://www.weboftrust.info/ https://www.weboftrust.info/ https://identity.foundation/ https://identity.foundation/

Avamander 8y ago
There's no way to do one-to-one identity verification and authentication without centralized coordination and control. Just as an example, even if we really wanted to there'd be now way to let only one CA issue a certificate for a domain if any of the CAs is rogue.
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  There is no easy way. What is an important distinction, since there exist situations when even hard to follow procedures are better than a centralized option. Those are just not your daily "how do I know if I can show you my credit card" situations.
  - Avamander 8y ago
    There's no cryptographically secure way as far as I'm aware.
    - marcosdumay 8y ago
      You do get in front of the other person and exchange public keys. Or you ask for help from a set of trusted middle-man. Those are perfectly fine ways to run a PKI, they are just not fit for the "entire web" PKI.
      - 8y ago

h2odragon 8y ago

Its easier to gripe about "evil $otherparty" and vent righteous anger at the corporate written and backed ideas that get submitted, than it would be to draft legislation implementing a sensible and sound open public ID system and get some Congresscritter to actually get it to the floor. There might have been some efforts that I'm unaware of but that I haven't heard of them suggests they didn't get far. It doesn't help that there's not yet an elegant, eloquently defined notion of what such a system should be that an advocate could point to and say "see? this will solve all your problems". We got hucksters yelling blockchain but that's a different thing.

crooked-v 8y ago
Trying to claim bothsides here is casually glossing over the very real history of the Republican party hijacking ID laws to suppress the rights of the poor and minorities.

mindslight 8y ago

Your talking about "identity theft" as if it's an unquestionable concept demonstrates precisely why there is opposition to strengthening the technicals of identification. Every bit that makes identification stronger is yet another excuse for businesses to assert that it is infallible. Even currently, rather than banks simply admitting they were defrauded and thanking/compensating the innocent bystanders for helping them set things right, they keep pushing this "identity theft" narrative to make it seem like the unlucky victims of bank's incompetence have some sort of intrinsic involvement! It's understandable how it got this way, as from inside the system's paradigm it does look like an "identity was stolen". But the map is not the territory - despite businesses wishing that it were because they can only operate in terms of the map. We are not subjects of the government nor of corporations - free people must resist being cataloged and controlled by database rows that seek to override our actual existence. Furthermore in regards to the US, it's basically a foregone conclusion that any government-mandated ID system will not include effective restrictions that keep corporations from hooking on to build invasive tracking. Let's hold them to reigning in the ongoing widespread abuse of license plates, driver's license numbers, etc before we go advocating for even more identifying requirements on individuals in this age of surveillance.

Avamander 8y ago
> they keep pushing this "identity theft" narrative to make it seem like the unlucky victims of bank's incompetence have some sort of intrinsic involvement! But how is it that it's not really a problem in Estonia, where we have strongly e-identity attached to a citizen. Or are you saying our banks, institutions, telecom and other companies are somehow more competent? You also have SSNs which is a government-mandated ID system that keeps you as rows in a database. Stop the holier-than-thou please.
- mindslight 8y ago
  > But how is it that it's not really a problem in Estonia, where we have strongly e-identity attached to a citizen I have no idea how your dispute process looks in Estonia. What happens if you lose your national ID card, don't realize it for a week, and someone has used it to do a bunch of things in your name? The sensible answer is that anything unauthorized should be rolled back or otherwise not attributed to you. This need is obvious when an "ID" is a plain 10 digit number. But when the average person can't imagine an ID being cloned because it's stored on a "smartcard", then it's a lot easier to sell responsibility as being on the person that lost their card. > You also have SSNs which is a government-mandated ID system that keeps you as rows in a database. Stop the holier-than-thou please. I only left off SSN next to license plate and driver's license number for brevity's sake. I was directly referencing ongoing problems here, so I certainly wasn't trying to be "holier-than-thou" in some kind of nationalist cheerleading. My point is that the existing ID systems that exist are being straight up abused (license plates -> ANPR, driver's license -> Retail Equation, SSN -> LexisNexis, for some of the most blatant abuses). The USian political philosophy discourages any sensible regulations that would reign this in, and that needs to be fixed before providing even more raw data for surveillance companies to build on. In Estonia, how would you deal with a supermarket deciding to make it so that customers wanting a sale discount card have to link their national ID?

sieabahlpark 8y ago

I think people have said that you can't force people to own or carry IDs because not everyone has equal access to get them.